make an english literature presentation on the exeter book riddles. only include these notes

divide it into sections - introduction, literary perspectives, riddle 7, riddle 33, riddle 51

and then add these notes

what are the exeter book riddles?
The riddles are contained in a manuscript written late in the tenth century CE. It contains many beautiful and haunting poems which demonstrate the rich culture of Anglo-Saxon (pre-Conquest) England.

It includes about a hundred riddles composed in Old English verse, which uses alliteration to structure its lines, along with a four-stress beat based on the important words in each line.

We don’t know who wrote these riddles, however we do think they were learned people.

Function of riddles? To tap into the mystery of things. And also a focus on things like vocabulary learning. So lots of different words for the same thing crop up in the same poem and in a kind of funny puzzly kind of way, like ‘How many words can you think of for the same thing?’

literary perspectives

1. New criticism. consider texts as autonomous and “closed,” meaning that everything that is needed to understand a work is present within it.

The reader does not need outside sources, such as the author’s biography, to fully understand a text. They focus on close reading, the interactions between form and meaning, and the variety and degree of certain literary devices, specifically metaphor, irony, tension, and paradox.

However, the inability to deal adequately with other kinds of texts is a significant fault in this approach. Furthermore, the exclusion of writer, reader, and context from scholarly inquiry has made New Criticism vulnerable to serious objections.

1. Reader-response theory. focuses on the reader or audience reaction to a particular text, perhaps more than the text itself.

Emphasis on the role of the reader in actively constructing texts rather than passively consuming them. A text has no meaning before a reader reads it.

Different readers come up with different acceptable interpretations because the text allows for a range of acceptable meanings, that is, a range of meanings for which textual support is available.

1. Feminist. critique of male power and ideology that interrogates the role of gender in the writing, interpretation, and dissemination of literary texts.

Based on the premise that social systems are patriarchal, it traces how such power relations in society are reflected, supported, or questioned by literary texts and expression.

1. Postcolonial. analysing the literature produced in countries that were once colonies, especially European powers

Looks at the broader interactions between European nations and the societies they colonized by dealing with issues such as identity (including gender, race, and class), language, representation, and history.

Because native languages and culture were replaced or superseded by European traditions in colonial societies, part of the postcolonialist project is reclamation.

1. Ecocriticism. examines how literary and cultural works represent environmental issues, nature, and humanity's impact on the planet.

quote - Riddles, as a type of wisdom poetry, asks us to learn something by viewing ordinary things in extraordinary ways - Megan Cavell Old English riddles are a game of perspective manipulation, and this manipulation of viewpoint is often a source of their obscurity. Readers must reverse-engineer the text, using the details that are provided and trying different ways of fitting them together, until they finally catch sight of what the writer has described in a defamiliarising manner. - also by megan cavell

Some themes and questions to consider
• Do the speaking objects in these riddles (especially numbers 5 and 85) or the narrating voices have stable identities, and how do you relate to those identities as a reader or listener?
• Look out for the way that Old English poetry layers its descriptions, using a technique known as repetition and variation to build up a patchwork of images and references. How does that affect your response?
• Is there an ethical or moral content to these riddles? What do you think is gained or lost from imagining objects as having a conscious life, or an ethical awareness?
• If you could write a riddle a bit like these, based on a contemporary object, what would you chose? How about trying it out and seeing what you come up with?

exeter riddle 7
My clothing keeps quiet, when I step on earth
or settle down on dwellings or disturb the waters.
Sometimes my dress and this lofty air
lift me over the home of heroes;
and widely, then, does the clouds’ strength
bear me over mankind. My adornments
sound out loud and entune sweetly,
sing clearly, when I am not touching
flood and fold, a soul faring.

answer - a swan (dont revela the answer straight away - have an option where i can reveal the answer whenever)

Reading through literary perspectives

New criticism
Interpretating the poem based on what's there

Reader response
The musical wing-sound may evoke a recognition based on personal experience; it has to be a flying thing
The swan is personified (e.g. clothing, dress, adornments) however its ability to fly means it cannot be a human

Ecocriticism
The lines draw attention to the swan’s interaction with different environments—land, water, and air

ridlde 33
Something wondrous came moving over wave;
the beautiful thing called out to shore from the ship,
resounded loudly. Its laughter was horrible,
terrible in the land. Its edges were sharp.
She was hate-fierce, slow in combat,
bitter in battle-deeds; hard, ravaging,
she carved into shield-walls, bound them with a hate-rune.
The cunning thing spoke of her own creation:
“My mother, the dearest of maiden-kind,
is the one who is my daughter,
grown up strong. It is known to men,
to folk among the people, that she shall come with joy
to the surface of the earth in every single land.

answer - an iceberg (again, hide this first)

Reading through literary perspectives

New criticism
Interpretating the poem based on what's there

Reader response
The musical wing-sound may evoke a recognition based on personal experience; it has to be a flying thing
The swan is personified (e.g. clothing, dress, adornments) however its ability to fly means it cannot be a human

Postcolonial
Nature depicted as an invading force
Language of dominance and territory
The poem imagines the concept of 'otherness' through

Feminist
The iceberg is feminised, gaining authority and power over the 'men' on the ship

Ecocriticism
The lines draw attention to the swan’s interaction with different environments—land, water, and air

exeter riddle 51
I saw four wondrous creatures
travel together. Dark were the tracks,
very black the footprints. It was swift in its going:
faster than birds it flew through the sky;
it dove under wave. Vigorously he laboured,
that striving warrior who showed it—all four—
the paths across ornamental gold.

answer - Three fingers holding a quill pen, writing a manuscript (again, hide it)

Reading through literary perspectives

New criticism
Interpretating the poem based on what's there

Reader response
The “solution” isn’t just an answer but the product of the reader's interpretation
Early lines (“four wondrous creatures,” “black footprints”) push readers toward animal or mythical interpretations. As the poem progresses, the reader revises earlier assumptions.
Whether the reader imagines birds, beasts, or tools depends on their background knowledge.

now i want you to make this website look like this website
https://www.1jour1actu.com/

in the riddles section you wrote challenge at the top. i dont like that word. cahnge all that to riddle.
the answer boxes when revealed look a little bit makeshift and the layout could be improved
also at the top. bar instead of 1day 1 riddle exeter book news instead write - exeter book riddles and then below AE presentation

oof in the answer reveal box for riddle 51 you cant actually see the whole answer! can you fix that so the text all fits into the box
also at the very bottom can you write - the larger letters wil be replaced with made by jude maverick
and below in smaller letteers exeter book riddles and then you can keep your dot and your 10th century CE

in yur answer boxes can you add an icon corresponding to the answer so for example riddle 7 a swan, add a swan icon
in themes and questions, i want you to number the questions, so instead of question marks you go 1, 2, 3, etc.
for scholarly insight i want you to enlarge the first sentence riddles.... extraoridnary ways so it stands out, and then the rest of that is smaller and below

also can you put the info and perspectievs and the riddles sections on the sidebar please like the home page of https://www.1jour1actu.com/
oh and add and refine these notes
Yes, so there’s a critic called Jennifer Neville who talks a lot about nature. And one of the points
she makes is there’s no distinct word for nature in Old English, and I often think about that, and I find that
very suggestive as an idea, because I suppose we’re so used to nature as something that can be bracketed and
separated from the human as something completely other. But if you kind of take that away as a presumption,
and there’s no word for nature in itself, then it kind of makes the human feel a bit more embedded in those
other natural phenomena, you know?
Apply this to the poems with the swan and the iceberg

there's also this thing which i'm not too sure how to connect to the riddles but you can refine and develop that
It’s a Greek word and it’s prosopopoeia – a non-human element speaks or is spoken to as a human
prosopopoeia helps us understand that the riddles are performing voice, not simply personifying objects—they’re experimenting with how poetic language creates the sense of someone speaking at all.
It shifts attention from solving the riddle to noticing how the crafted “I” shapes tone, genre, and meaning, placing the riddles within broader lyrical and poetic traditions.

also might i add your swan icon does not look like a swan!!

also for your themes and questions, can you cite them as coming from this website https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/ten-minute-book-club/exeter-book-riddles

also right now the website looks like two separating blocks. can you make it into one seamless website (you know what i mean???) like the home paeg of https://www.1jour1actu.com/ also i am not satisfied with the side bars, i want them to look exactly like the side bars in https://www.1jour1actu.com/

embed the citation into something - inseritng hte whole link looks messy
also can you please widen the website????

don't widen it TOO much - leave a little bit of blank space on both sides like this website https://www.1jour1actu.com/
and can you do this Imported the Fredoka font and defined the new "Actu" color palette (Vibrant Red, Dark Blue, Yellow).
also can you add these notes in somewhere Exeter riddle 51
Commentary on the ‘tracks’ and ‘footprints’ – For writers in the Old English tradition, the message of a text doesn’t just sit, as “content,” inside the block of writing that is present before the reader like a container, the way we tend to think of it. Instead, the message moves along the writing, or out in front of it (imagine a cursor on a computer screen that keeps going steadily forward), such that the inattentive or uncommitted reader is in danger of being left behind. This has to do with the fact that a thousand years ago writing was normally read aloud to listeners: receiving a text’s meaning was usually a time-bound, unidirectional event, like watching a movie is for us, that made it hard for audiences to go back and re-process the language as we can so easily do now when we privately read books or other textual media that we can freely manipulate. This condition of reception made for a different concept of “where” meaning is, in relation to its written manifestation, and what one must do to access it.
The important point here is that in an early English cultural context, writing suggests a message, a target of pursuit, that is always receding from the reader, a follower who must search for its signs and grasp at it. It must be actively kept up with.

Exeter riddle 7
In the Middle Ages, common wisdom held that the Latin word for swan, cygnus, came from the verb canere, "to sing."

Exeter riddle 33
The poem contains conceits – a metaphor that a poet holds on to through an extended pattern of images and analogies, in order to structure a whole poem according to some non-literal comparison.
One emerges in a series of details portraying the iceberg as an entity that is not just vocal, but actually linguistic, endowed with the ability to communicate. It “calls out to shore”; even its “laughter” is intelligible, mocking and causing terror to those on land who hear it. The other conceit is of course, battle. Similarly, the ecge (edges) in line 4 are here just edges, but in Old English poetry the word is more often a metonym for “swords”
For Old English poets, nature is splendid and God-created, providing abundantly for human needs, but it’s also very, very dangerous. Nature doesn’t care. Old English poetry shows us strife between animals and their environments; it shows us the vulnerability of individuals in the face of atmospheric and elemental forces; and it shows us conflict between organized human interests (like those that cause a ship to be built and launched) and the disruptive, damaging power of the things around us we can’t control.
the very fact that the Titanic likely came to mind suggests that an awareness of the modern event will lurk within present-day subjective reception of a riddle about an iceberg wrecking a ship. Our history affects the way this little text exists in our world now. Because the Titanic has presence in our consciousness, it has some influence on the kind of life Riddle 33 takes on in twenty-first-century eyes, ears, mouths, and minds. Number 33 reminds its readers that useful things are also dangerous, and that dangerous things may be magnificent.

no actually i changed my mind please do widen it so its easier to read

the words should be bigger if the screens gonna be that wide

use the same font throughout for everything

can you like look at this photo and make the annotations on teh poem itself please?? so that you can click on a phrase or word and it will show the relevant annotation this is for exeter riddle 51

ok very good, but the annotations stay in one place only??? i don't want that. i want the annotations to be where the phrase is, if that makes sense. and for the words click higlgihted text for notes can you please not make them bouncy?
ok now do the same for the other two riddles. here are the photos.

hey you gotta add the form and strucutre too!! they were all in the photos
also the small words in the info page are too small - they need to be a bit bolder like the ones in the other pages and lsighlty bigger as well
megan cavel's top quote is so bolded its a bit hard to read. can you tone down plese. and also increase the spacing between the letters a little bit in that whole schooarly insight blue box
also i have a problem with the literary perrspectives section. firstly there are way too many words. can you make them into bullet points whilst still keeping all the ideas? and i do think the layout in general could be made a bit more aesthetic and easier to read
for the top box that says exeter book riddles with the word literature at the top. i want you to change the word literature to AE presentation. and increase the letter spcaing in exeter book riddles in that box
also dont write introduction to the exeter book. just write exeter book riddles

change everything to british english
i still haev a problem with the perspectives section - can you not use the box layout>??? i need it to be more readable

no the perspectives section now looks even worse... it doesnt have any colour and its all too close together. lets do two persepctievs on one line instead of one on one like right now. and cna you pleae not use the word method????? infact just dont write anythin gthere at all, remove the method 01, 02, etc.
also for the riddle sections, i want the form adns trucutre next to the riddles and then the literary criticism reading BELLOW

the small words in the info section are a bit TOO bold. can you make them the same colour of bold as the small words in the other sections?
the riddles are a bit too large. make the font SLIGHTLY smaller
in the themes and questions, remove the star and the think about this:
and can yuo cite the unesco memory of the world, so i want a hyperlink like put this link into the words unesco memory of the world https://theexeterbook.exeter.ac.uk/

the form and strucutre box is slightly taller than the riddle box. make them the same height please
also actually make your main colours the colours of the UK flag - theunion jack. thatll be more thematically appropriate
the font in literary perspectives is a tad too small - make them slighlty bigger
also i dont need the 10th centuryCE faded box on the bottom left - remove that

dont use OVERLY bright colours
also i dont want the literayr presctives to be all in capitals. write New Criticism like that not NEW CRITICISM and so on
and for your sentenc different frameowkrs for ananlsyin and interpreting the riddles you dont need a comma at the end. remove the comma
the website looks great but a bit cheap - i want the 1jour1actu style but i also want it to look dignified and presentable, but dont make it too formal. keep the style. does that make sense? like strike a balance or something

can yuo remove the question mark icon from the riddles - its just an obstruction
the form and structure boxes - they do not need to be that long. they only need to be as long as the text is!
i stil see some overly bright colours - tone them down a bit

i see you have a definitio for caesura in riddle 51 - don't need that. remove that.

change literary perspectives in the perspectives section to literary criticism
additionally change the perspectives section name to criticism

i sitll dont like some of the colours. can you change all the colours to like old money style colours?

ok you know what some of these colours are way too dark - make them lighter but not as light as the original. s trike a balance between the two somehow
also for the answer box can you place that below the form and strucutre box instead of below the riddle box

i still need the yellow to be a bit lighter especialy for the yellow highilither annotations in the riddles
also for prosopopoeia, dont include it in the info section. weave it into your analysis of each of the riddles instead, obviosuly keep all the poitns that are here now but link them to the relevant riddles

also i feel like you could do something cool with the function of riddles ltitle section - like instead of just a boring text maybe jazz it up a bit? (dont put it in a box though thats just as boring)

no the fucntion of riddles setion now looks cringe because all youve done is change the font and added a few icons - it looks so so cringe. dont you have any better ideas?
i still need the yellow to be lighter. and also when i drag my pointer across anything and its yellow highlight the words turn white. i dont want that. keep the words black

can you make the highlighter yellow colour a tad bit brighter so its like the guardian highlgihter colour

ok now i need you to make a function whereby the highlighted words an phrases on the riddles arent there straght away but will only appear when i click on the words show highlighted text for notes or whatever! can you do that

can you make a note next to the answer when it shows up that this is just the answer that most academics and critics have agreed on and actually we'll never trluy know what the real answer was or answers were - just someting to show like sensitivity towards these texts you know??

what would yuo RECOMMEND to add to make this peresentation even better whether that be content, or layout or format etc. (dont add anyting yet i just wanna hea rsuggestions)

can you add that information about riddle 51 and the actual bur marks and hte context behind that.
ooh yes a timeline would be good! make an interactive timeline positionting the text to other texts in history
ok lets do a toggle switch to original old english but how would i talk about that i know nothing of that lanuge
exeter riddle51
Ic seah wrætlice wuhte feower
samed siþian; swearte wæran lastas,
swaþu swiþe blacu. Swift wæs on fore,
fuglum framra fleag on lyfte;
deaf under yþe. Dreag unstille
winnende wiga, se him wegas tæcneþ
ofer fæted gold feower eallum

exeter rriddle 7
Hrægl min swigað, þonne ic hrusan trede,
oþþe þa wic buge, oþþe wado drefe.
Hwilum mec ahebbað ofer hæleþa byht
hyrste mine, ond þeos hea lyft,
ond mec þonne wide wolcna strengu
ofer folc byreð. Frætwe mine
swogað hlude ond swinsiað,
torhte singað, þonne ic getenge ne beom
flode ond foldan, ferende gæst.

exeter riddle 33
Wiht cwom æfter wege wrætlicu liþan,
cymlic from ceole cleopode to londe,
hlinsade hlude; hleahtor wæs gryrelic,
egesful on earde, ecge wæron scearpe.
Wæs hio hetegrim, hilde to sæne,
biter beadoweorca; bordweallas grof,
heard, hiþende, heterune bond.
Sægde searocræftig ymb hyre sylfre gesceaft:
“Is min modor mægða cynnes
þæs deorestan, þæt is dohtor min
eacen up liden; swa þæt is ældum cuþ,
firum on folce, þæt seo on foldan sceal
on ealra londa gehwam lissum stondan.”

ooh actually beowulf date is disuputed between 700 and 1000 AD so pick a date in the middle and write that instead (although add a note that the date is disputed like this!)
for alfred - Right, so here’s the actual historical deal on when King Alfred the Great started pushing literacy in English, not just Latin — backed up with the dates scholars reckon:

During his reign as king of Wessex (he came to the throne in 871), Alfred saw that learning had collapsed because of the Danish raids and that most folk south of the Humber could barely read Latin at all, never mind their own tongue.
Encyclopedia Britannica
+1

The real push to promote literacy in the vernacular (Old English) alongside Latin happened in the 880s, once there was a bit of breathing space after the Battle of Edington in 878 and the initial Viking threat eased. That’s when he gathered scholars at his court, set up schools for both nobles and freemen, and began translating important texts into English so they could actually be read by his subjects.
Encyclopedia Britannica
+1

A key point scholars use to date his commitment is 11 November 887 — that’s when his biographer Asser says Alfred decided to learn Latin properly himself. After that, he translated and commissioned texts into Old English with the clear aim of promoting literacy in the language of the people, not merely in Latin.
Wikipedia

So in short:

Alfred became king in 871.
Encyclopedia Britannica

The literacy push in English really takes off in the 880s, especially after 878 when military pressures eased.
Encyclopedia Britannica

He personally took up learning Latin and began translating key works into English by at least 887.
Wikipedia

choose the most pappropriate date for alfred

In short:
Exeter Book was probably written in the late tenth century — roughly c. 960–990 AD, with c. 970 as a typical estimate.
Wikipedia
+1

chose the most appropraite date for the exeer book, like with beowulf and ote the dispiuted dates

norman conquest 1066

canterbury tales The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer were written in Middle English in the late fourteenth century. Scholars generally date the composition to roughly 1387 to 1400, the year Chaucer died, and it was still unfinished at his death.
Encyclopedia Britannica
+1

again choose the most papropaei date like with beowulf and note the disputed dates

and rename it timelinle instead of hsstiorical context - thatd be more accurate OR maybe like timline of old english??? or something?? i dont know is it old or. middle english

also the daets for the timeline are hidden by the boxes - can you fix it so i can see all the dates
also the boxes should correspond to the appropriate time - right now all the boxes are in the middle and i dont want that

ummm no dont like the title just title it timeline is fine

if youve got the dates then dont need to ssay date is disputed 0 remove that

we actually dont know who wrote the exeter book so dont write that, just say it was written

no no no i still need the boxes to be below their correspojding date. and you dont need to space out the dtes liek that, jus tkeep the original spacing lol

the words ~100 Riddles in the content box is a bit too light - c na you make that colour a bit darker please

i;m still not stisifed with the purpose and function section in the info section - can you make it better??? like a different layout

It contains many beautiful and haunting poems which demonstrate the rich culture of Anglo-Saxon (pre-Conquest) England. - sounds like AI. either remove it or summarise it in a more natural way
It includes about a hundred riddles composed in Old English verse, which uses alliteration to structure its lines, along with a four-stress beat based on the important words in each line. - remove the hundred riddles
Lots of different words for the same thing crop up in the same poem. - change the word poem to riddle
put the megan cavell quote above the themes and questions
Do the speaking objects in these riddles (especially numbers 5 and 85) or the narrating voices have stable identities, and how do you relate to those identities as a reader or listener? - remove the especially numbers 5 and 85
in the riddle 7 section can you keep the historical context separate plesae because at the moment it is in the literary criticism section which doesn't quite fit
The lines draw attention to the swan’s interaction with different environments—land, water, and air. - remove the em dash - and replace with something else
in teh riddle 33 box, can you put this Literary Analysis (Conceits)
•The poem relies on 'conceits'—extended metaphors. One conceit is battle: the 'edges' (ecge) are a metonym for swords, depicting the iceberg as a warrior.
•Through prosopopoeia, the iceberg 'calls out' and has 'laughter'. This shifts attention from simply solving the riddle to noticing how the crafted “I” shapes the tone of terror and wonder INTO THE READER RESPONSE BOX
in the riddle 51 section, can you put this into a separate place because it is not referring to any literary criticism and so you cant put it under that section Cultural Context (Tracks & Footprints)
•Commentary on 'tracks': In the Old English tradition, the message doesn't just sit in a container. It moves along the writing—or out in front of it—like a target of pursuit that is always receding.
•Because writing was normally read aloud (a time-bound, unidirectional event), the listener had to actively keep up with the meaning, much like following footprints. The 'reader' is a follower searching for signs.
this is also about historical context, group the cultural context tracks and footprints with this too Material Culture / The Manuscript
•There is a deep irony in this riddle. It describes the precise art of writing and 'ornamental gold', yet the Exeter Book itself was treated with little reverence in later centuries.
•The manuscript bears physical scars: it was used as a cutting board (leaving knife scores), a beer coaster (leaving circular stains), and the back pages are badly burned by a firebrand or hot poker.
•This riddle about the creation of a pristine text survives in a book that was slashed, stained, and scorched—a testament to the fragile physical reality of literature.
for riddles 33 and 51, add in the box New Criticism
•Interpreting the poem based on what's there.

remove all em dashes (-) everywhere!

put the timeline below the what are the exeter book riddles

wait i want the timeline to take up the full page like previously, why have you reduced it!! i just needed it to be below the what are the exeter book riddles

umm i want the fast facts next to the what are the exter book riddles stilll

below the what are the exeter book riddles can you link to this link https://www.exeter-cathedral.org.uk/learning-collections/explore-the-collections/the-exeter-book/ to see the exeter book riddles - make the link look like thel ink you put below the thmee snad questions if that makes sense
in the material culture/manuscript of riddle 51 can you link it to this link below https://artofcompost.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/123v.jpg

in the exeter book riddles link, just say see the exeter book at exeter cathedral, no need to add riddles in there
also below that link can you add trhis link http://www.literaryplaces.co.uk/?p=32 to see the exeter riddle sculture
and replace the themes and questions link with this link instead https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/ten-minute-book-club/exeter-book-riddles#tab-4071251

remove this This suggests that the human ('dwellings') and the natural ('waters', 'air') were not seen as separate, bracketed categories. The swan's seamless movement through all these spaces demonstrates this embeddedness.

The poem relies on 'conceits': extended metaphors. One conceit is battle: the 'edges' (ecge) are a metonym for swords, depicting the iceberg as a warrior. - move to the new crtiicism box in riddle 33 section

Number 33 reminds its readers that useful things are also dangerous, and that dangerous things may be magnificent. - remove this

can you actually remove the propsopoepiea and the analyssi that comes with it. just remove all of it

remove this - This riddle about the creation of a pristine text survives in a book that was slashed, stained, and scorched: a testament to the fragile physical reality of literature.

can yuo add an ecocriticism interpretation to riddle 51 as well because the quill and the book were made from natuarl material or something...???

remove this or rewrite in a more natural, readable way •
This riddle highlights the physical transformation of natural materials into tools for human literacy.

and dont say ecological artifact that sounds so ai make it sound more natural - and dont use the word fundamentally

no no no tell us where the stuff came from in anture thats it,

remove this It shows how much human learning relied on the natural world. but keep everything else

instead of a white background can you make a background tint thats like reminisicnent of a manuscript like light brown or sth (but still keeps the text readable!)